Every time Cloutier started to play well he got hurt. I think if he had not been hurt so much he might have evolved into top 10. I suspect he could make a good coach. What happened to the last guy who changed Lou's game so much? BTW. I like the idea of having Lou around to stqart the season whenever that may be. Soon please.

Tciso wrote:Holden's career ended when he said "I have a hard time gripping the stick" after he slashed the tendons in his hand. Too sad.

Todd Bersnoozi wrote:Speaking of Holden, sometimes I think Higgins is the type of player Holden should have become.

Too true. Vancouver has had it's share (if not more) of freak bad luck with prospects. Who can say what Holden's ceiling would have been?

Who knows, but Quinn said he still regrets sending Holden back to junior that year. Holden had made the Canucks as an 18yr old I believe but Quinn said he and the staff had reservations about rushing him and felt another year of junior would be good for his development. I believe Quinn told Josh this at a wedding a couple of yrs back. The incident occurred when his glove accidentally came off and was a pure fluke. Sad really.

Fred wrote:I was a Sopel supporter And was pleased to see him win a SC (despite playing for the Hawks )

Are you a relative of his ?

Naw I just thought that the duo of Ohlund and Sopel were great. Sopel provided much of the offense and Ohlund a staedy force. When they used to pull that cross over back at the blue line man it confused the Hell out of a lot of teams. And on the PP it was the very rare puck that got past Sopel at the point, heady sort of a player. The guy that always scared the bejeebers out of me was Jovo, man he used to cough it up so often you lost count. It was popular to look down on Sopel, sort of sheep think

Brent Sopel has a SC ring and deservedly so. Jovo was always popular since the day he was drafted and when the mood took him could really lay the muscle on ...nothing wrong with that, I like him some times but gaffs were his primary calling card IMO. I'll say this he did get better with time.

And frankly Sopel was not as good at the things he did as Jovo was at what he did

Don't get me wrong, I was not a guy who really liked Sopel, but the dude took a lot more heat than he should have. He was a decent 4/5 guy who had a real heavy shot , could make a good first pass and like you say had a knack of holding the puck in on the PP. He was a bit soft for a guy so big and strong however, but in the end a decent partner for Ohlund .

That team had three good defensive pairings in Ohlund/Sopel, Jovo/Malik and Baron/Salo. No wonder Cloutier put up so many wins. They had good defensive forwards in Klatt, Chubarov, Linden etc....toughness, a dynamite first line. Imagine if the twins had starting producing a couple seasons earlier. They would have won a cup in spite of Dan Cloutier. Timing is a motherfucker sometimes.

Blob Mckenzie wrote:Don't get me wrong, I was not a guy who really liked Sopel, but the dude took a lot more heat than he should have. He was a decent 4/5 guy who had a real heavy shot , could make a good first pass and like you say had a knack of holding the puck in on the PP. He was a bit soft for a guy so big and strong however, but in the end a decent partner for Ohlund .

That team had three good defensive pairings in Ohlund/Sopel, Jovo/Malik and Baron/Salo. No wonder Cloutier put up so many wins. They had good defensive forwards in Klatt, Chubarov, Linden etc....toughness, a dynamite first line. Imagine if the twins had starting producing a couple seasons earlier. They would have won a cup in spite of Dan Cloutier. Timing is a motherfucker sometimes.

You know when you think about it Cloutier was surounded with quality help....just makes things worse